Attachment 44From: Liat Zavodivker [m a i l to:lzavod@ q mail.com ]
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2018 11:12 AM
To: Rob Rennie; Steven Leonardis; Marcia Jensen; Marica Sayoc; BSpector; Town Manager
Subject:
Dear Mayor Rennie, Vice Mayor Leonardis and Town Council Members Jensen, Sayoc, and
Spector:
The median home sales price in Los Gatos is now $1.8b million and median rent for all
properties in the Town, including all unit sizes, was a staggering $5,200 a month (Trulia, August
2018). These shocking costs are symptomatic of the severe shortage of housing that exists in
Los Gatos.
On Tuesday, August 15 1 h, you will have the opportunity to act to alleviate the housing crisis
affecting your community and the entire Bay Area. North 40 presents an opportunity for the
Town to meaningfully improve housing affordability in Los Gatos
I urge you to do so by taking the following actions:
• Allow a maximum of 455 new homes in the North 40 Specific Plan. North 40 has long
been identified as an appropriate location for denser developments and more homes
can only add to the vibrancy of the area. There is no justifiable reason for the specific
plan to accommodate half of the residential uses allowed in the adopted environmental
documents.
• Allow the moratorium on North 40 entitlements to expire. Delays cause by a
moratorium only serves to make the housing problem worse and shifts your housing
responsibilities to other communities .
Both these actions are critical to ensuring that Los Gatos does its fair share to address regional
housing crisis and I hope you will decide to act in a way that helps to ease the housing crisis.
Sincerely,
Liat Zavodivker
Former Resident of Los Gatos to what displaced by exorbitant rents on property that was
constructred over fifty years ago.
ATTACHMENT 4 4
From: Jason Uhlenkott [D1ai1to:jpu914@uhlenkott.net ]
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2018 11:52 AM
To: Rob Rennie; Steven Leonardis; Marcia Jensen; Marica Sayoc; BSpector; Town Manager
Cc: Anna Salvador-Rodriguez
Subject: In Support of North 40 Housing
Dear Mayor and Council,
I'm writing to ask you to legalize housing to the greatest extent possible in the North 40 area. The
median home in Los Gatos now costs $1.8 million, and the median rent is now $5,200. People are being
displaced every day and Los Gatos cannot be a healthy community in the long term if its housing policies
exclude nearly everyone who is not already a homeowner.
I ask for the following actions:
-Allow a maximum of 455 new homes in the North 40 Specific Plan. North 40 has long been identified
as an appropriate location for denser developments and more homes can only add to the vibrancy of
the area.
-Allow the moratorium on North 40 entitlements to expire. We are deep in a crisis and need more
housing with great urgency. Sustaining a moratorium would be exactly the wrong response to a
shortage.
Sincerely,
Jason Uhlenkott
Diane Dreher, Ph.D.
*223 Arroyo Grande Way* Los Gatos, CA 95032 * Phone (408) 554-4954 *
13 August 2018
Mayor Rob Rennie, Vice Mayor Steve Leonardis, Town Council Members Barbara Spector, Marico Sayoc, and
Marcia Jensen
Dear Mayor Rennie, Vice Mayor Leonardis, and Town Council Members:
I urge you to extend the moratorium on any further amendments to increase building height and the number of
housing units in the North 40 Specific Plan for three reasons.
1. A More Balanced Approach to the Bay Area Housing Crisis. The developer claims that increasing
building height and housing density would help alleviate the severe Bay area housing shortage,
proposing two housing towers, more appropriate for an urban area than our small town, creating more .
crowding, congestion, and excessive traffic at an already busy intersection. Los Gatos could address the
housing shortage more mindfully in future Town Council and Planning Commission meetings by
planning additional housing throughout town, preferably closer to existing light rail-much wiser than
concentrating even more housing in the small area between Lark A venue and Los Gatos Boulevard.
2. Health and Safety. Increased building ·neight and density would only add to the town's current traffic
congestion, the subject of complaints in Town Council meetings, Next Door, and the Los Gatos Weekly
Times. Phase 1 of the North 40 will undoubtedly increase traffic congestion in the Los Gatos
Boulevard/Lark A venue area, impeding access to Good Samaritan Hospital for doctors, nurses, patients,
and emergency vehicles. In addition, medical professionals have raised concerns about toxic particulate
matter and air pollution from increased traffic on roads and the nearby freeways. In planning for our
future, we need to be more mindful about these threats to public safety.
3. Concern for Town Governance. As a Los Gatos resident for decades, I have been impressed with our
long tradition of town governance in which citizens and elected Town officers cooperate to determine
the best policies for our town. The current North 40 Specific Plan represents years of careful
deliberation and planning by committed citizens of Los Gatos. Any amendment to the Specific Plan
needs to reflect ongoing deliberation by the citizens of Los Gatos. For an international corporation based
in another country to presume to dictate polity which will affect our town for decades is both
inappropriate and absurd. Their proposed policy change would affect their corporate profit, not their
daily lives. Acquiescing to their demands would be a violation of our principles of town governance.
For all these reasons, then, I join my neighbors 1 and other committed citizens in urging you, as Mayor and Town
Council members, to .~xtend the moratorium 'on amendments to the North 40 Specific Plan for at least a year. In
keeping with our principles of self-governance, I urge you to consider a moratorium on any increase in building
height and housing density in the Specific Plan until Phase 1 of the North 40 is constructed and populated so
that we may better understand the effects on traffic, health, and safety. Then, with this understanding, we and
our future neighbors in Phase 1-not considerations of corporate profit--can plan for our collective future.
Sincerely, -~